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Is Geocaching Dead?


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On 5/13/2018 at 9:23 PM, K13 said:

First US giga event? MARKETING & placating to icon chasers. I may have to make the drive/flight to get that meaningless giga pixel-set on my page - NOT! When attendance has been tallied, there will not be the requisite number of participants for that designation, but the status and icon will stand.

There were 4,626 Attended logs.  Considering that a not-insignificant number of caching names represent couples, or even families, then that would mean at least 5000 attendees.

 

On 5/2/2018 at 4:59 AM, on4bam said:

It may not be dead but it seems it's being killed. While maintaining my database I noticed a series of caches with 500+ favorites each (and having seen the CO's work before I'm sure they were well worth it) being archived by "Geocaching HQ admin", locking the listing in the process. These were not recently places caches and there is nothing in the logs that even hints to problems which makes this very strange.

Oh well, someone will come around and throw some P&G micros around this new freed up space :ph34r:

I only translated one of those caches, as it seems they are all PMO, and it sounds like it was a "travelling cache".  Follow a trackable that the CO brings to various events, then solve a puzzle to claim a find on the cache.  Is that how it worked?  Did all of the caches in that series work the same way?  I was relying on google translate, so not sure if I just misinterpreted what those caches are.

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1 hour ago, noncentric said:

 

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I'm intrigued by the dip just before the start of each new year. Seasonally that'd be late spring going to early summer so I doubt the weather would have much to do with it, and the school holidays typically start a week before Christmas and run through to almost the end of January so it doesn't coincide with that either. Maybe people here just stop caching in the leadup to Christmas - too many parties to attend?

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2 hours ago, barefootjeff said:

I'm intrigued by the dip just before the start of each new year. Seasonally that'd be late spring going to early summer so I doubt the weather would have much to do with it, and the school holidays typically start a week before Christmas and run through to almost the end of January so it doesn't coincide with that either. Maybe people here just stop caching in the leadup to Christmas - too many parties to attend?

This is where the zoom option helps a lot.  I zoomed in to a few one year periods, July 2012-July 2013, July 2013-July 2014, July 2014-July 2015 - again just Australia and Traditional cache type. It seems to show increased logs in January and again around April. Does that make sense for your season 'down under'?  It looks like activity picks up in October too?

 

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1 hour ago, noncentric said:

This is where the zoom option helps a lot.  I zoomed in to a few one year periods, July 2012-July 2013, July 2013-July 2014, July 2014-July 2015 - again just Australia and Traditional cache type. It seems to show increased logs in January and again around April. Does that make sense for your season 'down under'?  It looks like activity picks up in October too?

 

Thanks. The solid blocks during January would be expected as that's when many people are taking their summer holidays. The big peak around April-May is intriguing, possibly associated with Easter which is a 4-day long weekend here. We also have the ANZAC day public holiday on the 25th of April which may provide an extra mid-week caching opportunity, but I'm surprised by the size of that peak compared to the rest of the year. I wonder if there might have been megas on then.

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On 4/29/2018 at 7:50 PM, 321geocache said:

From the perspective of a new geocacher:

Geoaching isn't just about swag, trackables, cool containers, fancy logbooks, etc. (In fact, I've yet to trade swag or drop/grab a trackable). It's about the places that it takes you. I have found several LPCs and magetic nanos on street signs. They aren't really "role model geocaches" IMO.

I have hidden one cache. I tried to place it in an area that had some historical significance (in this case, a park in a historic neighborhood) and make it a bit interesting - not just an LPC or a magnetic nano. What is the point of placing an LPC? What's the point of trying to find geocaches just for numbers? In my opinion, the point of geocaching isn't just the container - it's the cache location. Geocaching is supposed to bring us to interesting places. Not Walmart parking lots.

The more interesting caches we hide, the more people will think Geocaching is an interesting hobby.

We probably all geocache for different reasons.  I do appreciate the places it takes me and it gets me out into the fresh air and gives me some much needed exercise but what really drives me is ‘the find’ - it just feels so rewarding!  I don’t mind the lightpost caches or one hundred similar pill bottle caches along a trail.  Maybe we haven’t been at this long enough to be disappointed but for now we are loving it and when we come to a spectacular view or an unusual cache, to me that’s a bonus!  I have hidden 4 caches and tried to point out something significant about the location but mostly I just want to give people in our area a cache to find - especially the children!  If we can get the younger generation out and interested in this hobby than that’s a good thing!

Happy Geocaching!!!

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On ‎4‎/‎29‎/‎2018 at 6:50 PM, 321geocache said:

From the perspective of a new geocacher:

Geoaching isn't just about swag, trackables, cool containers, fancy logbooks, etc. (In fact, I've yet to trade swag or drop/grab a trackable). It's about the places that it takes you. I have found several LPCs and magetic nanos on street signs. They aren't really "role model geocaches" IMO.

I have hidden one cache. I tried to place it in an area that had some historical significance (in this case, a park in a historic neighborhood) and make it a bit interesting - not just an LPC or a magnetic nano. What is the point of placing an LPC? What's the point of trying to find geocaches just for numbers? In my opinion, the point of geocaching isn't just the container - it's the cache location. Geocaching is supposed to bring us to interesting places. Not Walmart parking lots.

The more interesting caches we hide, the more people will think Geocaching is an interesting hobby.

 

I mostly agree, and feel it's unusual these days for a relatively new person to think of this hobby that way.  

For me, when the slogan was "the language of location", it fit.  When it became a "real-world, outdoor treasure hunting game ", well...not so much...

 - But since this is a world-wide hobby where anyone can play, we realize that there will be different tastes.    :)

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On ‎11‎/‎27‎/‎2018 at 11:22 AM, wmpastor said:

Is Geocaching dead?  No, Pokemon Go is dead!

 

I saw some lady in her 50's playing Pokemon Go at the park a few months ago, I thought it was weird that she had her phone out and was pacing back and forth, so we were about to ask if she was a cacher until she asked us if we were looking for Pikachu. 

 

Subcultures...

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On 11/27/2018 at 5:22 PM, wmpastor said:

Is Geocaching dead?  No, Pokemon Go is dead!

 

 

I have no interest in that game (altho' I have had folks smile knowingly at me while I've been using my 'phone for wherigos rather than a proper GPS for other caches, so they obviously thought PG was what I was doing  ...) but a quick google produces some interesting statistics: PG grossed $84.8 million in September of this year, and in the same month the game was downloaded 8.86 million times worldwide .

 

In contrast, over its entire life the official geocaching app has had 67,770 total downloads for android. I'm afraid I  can't find any statistics on i phone  app downloads, altho' in my searches for that data I  did come across a lot of bitter complaints from casual users of the previous app. who deeply resented making a once and for all payment that then having it vanish.

 

Yes, I know there are other geocaching apps we cannot mention here which may well be very popular downloads, and there are still Jurassic fossils like me who use a GPS and the website on PC , but if you are comparing the smartphone, revenue producing , for profit business of PG with the smartphone, revenue producing , for profit business of Groundspeak, and you think PG is in a bad way , then Groundspeak is far worse off.

 

If the frog wasn't ineptly trying to leap on the app revenue bandwagon to concentrate on wooing that lucrative demographic of casual users , and valuing them as far more important than website users whose 'experience' they think needs to be integrated with a superficially  trendy looking app, perhaps caching would have not lost so many dedicated cache setters , y'know, the ones who set those quality caches we hope to find, the ones set with thought , care and consideration ... on a computer screen.

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3 hours ago, hal-an-tow said:

In contrast, over its entire life the official geocaching app has had 67,770 total downloads for android. I'm afraid I  can't find any statistics on i phone  app downloads, altho' in my searches for that data I  did come across a lot of bitter complaints from casual users of the previous app. who deeply resented making a once and for all payment that then having it vanish.

I may be wrong, but I think you're looking at the wrong number.  The 67,772 number appears to be how many Reviews have been posted to the app store.  Scrolling to the bottom of that app's listing says it has been Installed over 5 million times. Not necessarily by 5 million different people though, as some people might install it multiple times on different devices.

image.png.9a633c6b1eda9f1e23fa5dc9ed3c029e.png

 

3 hours ago, hal-an-tow said:

If the frog wasn't ineptly trying to leap on the app revenue bandwagon

What "app revenue" are you referring to?  I don't see the usual methods of generating revenue via an app, namely charging for the download and running ads.  From what I can tell, the only revenue the app generates is by converting Basic Members to Premium Members. Whether BM's convert to PM's may or may not be due to the app. Plenty of BM's will convert to PM's because they want the benefits of PQ's, Notifications, Bookmark Lists, etc.

 

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On 12/15/2018 at 7:48 AM, TwistedCube said:

It's funny to think that even people caching 16 years ago thought there was at least a decline in interest.

 

3 million caches later...

Reading through that older thread, almost all of the comments were that it wasn't dead and was in fact growing. And that thread was ressurected 3 years after it was originally started, still with comments that death did not seem at all imminent.  Quite a different tone than in this thread.

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On 11/20/2018 at 9:39 PM, barefootjeff said:

 

Thanks. The solid blocks during January would be expected as that's when many people are taking their summer holidays. The big peak around April-May is intriguing, possibly associated with Easter which is a 4-day long weekend here. We also have the ANZAC day public holiday on the 25th of April which may provide an extra mid-week caching opportunity, but I'm surprised by the size of that peak compared to the rest of the year. I wonder if there might have been megas on then.

 

Easter would be a "mega" weekend, hence the upswing in logs for that time as many people who attend mega events will go power caching around the mega event area on that weekend.  Many will take time off either side of the mega as well to travel and cache to and from the event or around the country.  Well that's my hypothesis anyway.

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